Harry Kewell admits his coaching style at Celtic might be viewed by some as a tad unorthodox but that he has built a strong relationship with the squad.
The former Australian international joined fellow countryman Ange Postecoglou in his Parkhead mission after the ex-Yokohama Marinos boss settled in to life in Glasgow. Kewell bolstered the backroom staff of long-term coach John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan as first team coach and seems to be getting the best out of some of the top Celtic stars.
Postecoglou's side sit nine clear and with a few roadblocks in the way of a potential domestic treble, and Kewell who plays a key role on the training pitch believes clear communication is important. The former Leeds United man revealed he often makes a mistake to see if players pick up on it and has namechecked Daizen Maeda and Jota as two starts who are attentive.
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Kewell told the Big Interview podcast with Graham Hunter: “With Daizen Maeda, he’s a very good listener and learner. What you say to him, he’ll listen and take it on board. Even when I have my meetings with my players, it’s not about: ‘I’m the coach, you’re the player, you listen to what I say’. No, no, no. We’re just in an environment here to have a chat.
"I’m going to say something that’s completely wrong but I want to see if you pick up on it, because that means you're going to be confident enough to be ale to go: ‘I don’t agree with that’. Then I know that they’re listening.
"Otherwise they just sit there saying yep, yep, yep and people don't want to go into meetings. They want to do other things. I’ll question it and ask if they're sure about that. Then they’ll think about it. My first question to my players is always ‘what do you think?’ and at first, they were shy. Now, I’ll spend an hour with Jota and we won’t even start with the video. We’ll be talking about it.
“Certain players have to have a certain demand. If you're an attacker, you have to be quite demanding. I even got to the point when I rang Ian Harte and asked what I was like as a player. He said: ‘I just gave you the ball. You were demanding but that’s what you want.’
“Some of these players are maybe shy because they’re still young. They’re playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world. My first impressions were that Celtic and Rangers dominate the league and all this. But being here, the amount of pressure on the Celtic team to win every day is tough. A draw’s not good enough.
“But we deliver that every day in training. We put pressure on them to deliver and the manager puts pressure on us to make sure we're delivering the sessions that he wishes so that when the players go out, they’re ready for it."
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